Well, she’s not exactly a Republican anymore, a bit like Lieberman in her path but not positions. She’d better be described as (Ruling Class-AK) than (R-AK).

I’m not at all sanguine that we’d see the same result with a Supreme Court nominee; looking at the “Gang of 14“, Snow, Collins, McCain and Lindsey Graham are still serving. Hatch’s vote of Present … is curious, but it has the same effect of a Nay vote. Brown? Don’t know, probably depends on how he views his reelection campaign for 2012 and his strategy for it.

I wish I could be as optimistic as Sebastian. The current vote cost very little political capital for an anti-gunner congressman who wanted to avoid an NRA backed reelection fight. Most people outside the beltway didn’t even know this nomination was defeated.

A public Supreme Court nominee fight is, however, a different matter. It is important that only pro-2A judges are nominated. We must not allow an anti-2A president to be elected.

Well, the last two nomination fights went so very well that we got the solicitor general for Obama’s administration now judging the constitutionality of his barely-passed Healthcare law, and another who openly lied to the Senate about her beliefs on the 2nd Amendment and the meaning of the Heller case. What will it take to get the Republicans to vote against similar nominees?

Exactly right! Sebation is being way too optimistic over the ability of Republicans in the U.S. Senate to stop Obama from packing the U.S. Supreme Court with anti-gun justices.

The fact is Obama doesn’t have to select an overtly anti-gun nominee to get an anti-gun nominee. Sotomayor is proof of that. All Obama has to do is select any “mainstream” liberal judge, and he can be fairly certain how such a person would rule on a 2nd Amendment related case.

All Obama has to do is the wink-wink, nod-nod thing with nominees in person. It won’t encourage ladder-climbers to keep making anti-RKBA rulings, but it will ensure that even stealth anti noms will get confirmed, if they are sufficiently good bald-faced liars at question time like Sotomayor.